Santa Ana Mayor Vince Sarmiento has hired Manny Escamilla, a planner for the City of Oakland who ran unsuccessfully for Santa Ana City Council in 2019, to be his council aide on a contract basis. Escamilla will apparently continue working remotely for Oakland while serving as Sarmiento’s aide.
Escamilla is prominent in progressive Left politics in Santa Ana. Following Councilman Roman Reyna’s resignation from the council amidst a residency fraud scandal, a special election was held on November 5, 2019 to fill the Ward 4 vacancy. Escamilla resigned from his job as a planning assistant with the City of Santa Ana and jumped into the race, but was narrowly defeated by Phil Bacerra, a moderate, pro-business Democrat.
Escamilla’s political views veer sharply to the Left: he supports rent control and subscribes to the view that the prime driver of homelessness is rent rather than mental illness and drug addiction. His social media activity puts him in the ideological camp of urban planners who view single-family home zoning as structurally racist. While running for council, Escamilla said he would have opposed the three-year, $25 million police contract adopted by the council in February 2019.
Escamilla’s $26,000 contract to be Sarmiento’s policy aide was effective March 24, 2022 and runs through the end of the fiscal year on June 30. Escamilla is currently a zoning planner for the City of Oakland.
The scope of services in Escamilla’s contract states he shall, “at the direction of the mayor” perform a range of constituent, administrative and legislative duties, “including, but not limited to, conducting complex administrative studies, researching and responding to constituents’ inquiries, drafting written communications involving strategy, policies, and/or procedures, coordinating assigned project activities, and serving as a liaison, as necessary.”
Council Majority Appropriates $210,000 To Hire Council Aides
Escamilla’s hiring stems from a January 18, 2022 vote by the council majority to appropriate $210,000 for the remainder of the fiscal year to be used to hire contract council aides. Each council member would be allotted $30,000 for a contract aide or aides. These would complement the three full-time executive assistants employed to provide support for council members.
Explicit in the council action is this will be a permanent annual expenditure, and that the council will spend nearly half a million annually going forward – or $60,000 per council member – unless the council increases or reduces the amount.
Council members could decline to use their allocation.
During the January 18 meeting, Sarmiento and his council allies Jessie Lopez and Thai Phan complained at length that the three full-time executive assistants were overwhelmed trying to support the mayor and six council members, and that additional support was necessary.
Responding to questions from Councilman David Penaloza, City Manager Kristine Ridge said “several of your colleagues” had approached her about hiring council aides for them.
Penaloza made a substitute motion to remove the council aide funding from a larger appropriations item, describing it as fiscally irresponsible. He asked City Manager Kristine Ridge how the contractors would report their time and who would ensure they worked the hours they claimed.
Ridge replied the councilmember for whom the aide works would be responsible for certifying those hours, which would then go to the city for payment.
“That sounds very messy…and gross,” Penaloza responded.
Penaloza’s motion to strip out the $210,000 expenditure on council aides failed on a 4-3 vote, with Councilmembers Bacerra and Nelida Mendoza supporting nixing the spending.
“This is another opportunity for us to open up this institution to Santa Ana residents,” said Councilmember Jessie Lopez while explaining her reasons for supporting hiring council aides.
“I do need that support, and I shouldn’t be ashamed of that,” said Lopez.
Lopez has been advertising for a council aide on her social media:
“So, those funds are going towards an intern and hopefully I can find somebody from Santa Ana that I can, you know, that I can retain and teach them a skill that will develop into something that, you know, will hopefully help that person’s future,” said Sarmiento while discussing his support for the council aides expenditure.
Instead, Sarmiento hired a savvy political activist and career city planner whom Santa Ana political watchers believe still harbors ambitions to run for the city council.
Sarmiento did not respond to our request for comment.
